Energy - Saving it and Creating it Sustainably

We have always been inclined to go for the 'cheap and cheerful' options wherever possible and have put a lot of effort into reducing our needs rather than investing in infrastructure to create energy. However, there are some areas in which we have invested, believing them to have the most likely cost-benefits ratio.

Passive Solar Design

We did a complete renovation of the property to take advantage of passive solar design techniques for maximising free heat and light from the sun. This involved changing the internal layout, increasing glazing on the south-facing side and reducing glazing on the north-facing side.

Solar Hot Water

Solar Hot Water Panels on the roof. The solar hot water system consists of two panels and a solar pv panel which drives the pump. During our time running a B&B we had many people using hot water in our home, usually up to 10 at a time. During the winter we usually let our rooms out to students at a nearby college, so year-round we always had a 'house-full'. We used this same solar hot water system (we've moved it here now) and we only ever needed to purchase 1/4 tank of oil a year to supplement the hot water during the warm months when we didn't have the wood furnace going. Pretty amazing since this is Atlantic Canada - we are completely happy with our solar hot water system. It works anytime the sun shines and it doesn't matter how cold the outside temperature gets. Sunshine = hot water, even in winter.... in fact you can sometimes get more hot water in the winter as we do get a lot of sunny winter days.

Solar Heating

This is the Solarsheat solar heater attached to a south (more or less) facing wall of the cottage. As soon as the sun shines (and it doesn't matter how cold it is outside) the solar pv driven fan kicks in and warm air floods into the home.

We find it exceeds the manufacturers claims about how the area it is capable of heating. Along with the passive solar measures we have implemented, this can warm up the entire cottage on a sunny day.Another option is the Cansolair made in Newfoundland out of recycled cans. We were very keen on it, but opted for the solarsheat because the entire unit (including fan) could be run entirely on solar energy. As usual, you can make your own if you are suitably clever enough (we aren't!). I will try to recall some of the best links, but in the meantime do a search for DIY thermal siphon, or 'make your own solar heater' or similar and you should come up with some good options. The solar heater is something we've saved up for over the years and only recently managed to get one installed. There are other alternatives. For several years we managed with the Clear Dome Solar Thermal drapes (and we still intend to use them). The fabric is dark and does have the effect of darkening a room as well as reducing the view. However, if it is a room which is not in use during the day time this can be a useful and budget concious option. As soon as sunlight strikes this 'fabric' it heats up and heat radiates into the room. For info on this see Clear Dome Solar We believe it's possible to build your own solar heaters, but don't know how to do it ourselves yet!

Wood for Heating and Hot Water (winter)

We are incredibly fortunate to have access to 25 acres of woodland, so wood fuel is plentiful and free (apart from the hard work of collecting it that is!). However, we don't want to waste it, so as to reduce the effort in getting it.A standard wood stove (EPA approved high efficiency) in the living room is actually capable of heating the entire bungalow if necessary, but there's also have a cookstove in the kitchen. The kitchen cookstove has been adapted to heat our hot water (supplements the solar hot water) and to cook, boil kettles, dry clothes, etc. It is a marvellous comfort on a cold winters day and truly the heart of the home, keeps the wine fermenting, the bread rising and the yoghurt at the perfect temperature - where would we be without it?The Cook Stove has a hot water jacket inside the firebox. Cold water goes in at the bottom pipe, gets heated up, out at the top pipe and into the storage tank. Hey presto, hot water comes out of the taps, no electrical pumps required.

Eco Energy Retrofit

SAVED: 4.7 Tonnes of Greenhouse gases a year!! At the time we purchased 'Red Sand Cottage' there were two schemes, one was from the Provincial Government of Prince Edward Island and the other was the Federal Government of Canada ecoENERGY Retrofit scheme. The PEI Office of Energy Efficiency explained the various schemes to us. They told us about the federal grants and helped us to organise the audits and apply for the funding. We applied to the Province for the scheme shortly after purchasing the property in the Fall of 2009 and had our first audit (the pre-retrofit energy evaluation) 24th Nov 2010. The results of this audit showed our house rated 62 points on the EnerGuide scale and suggested that, if we implemented the recommendations in the report, we could increase this to 73. To put this into perspective, the average rating for a similar type house on PEI was 63 (so we were marginally below). The highest rating achieved by the most energy-efficient houses in this category is 78. If we implemented the recommendations we would be able to reduce the production of greenhouse gases by 4.7 tonnes per year. We had 18 months to complete the work to qualify for an ecoENERGY Retrofit homes grant. Not only that, there were the grants available from the Federal Government which would also help. Of course, the real savings will come from the energy savings and the improved comfort level, so we decided to go right on ahead! Here is a summary of the recommendations in our pre-retrofit energy evaluation: Increase basement wall insulation by a minimum of R-24Seal all basement header area and increase basement header insulation by min R-20Increase attic/roof insulation from R11.9 to min R-50Install a CSA compliant solar domestic hot water systemImprove air tightness of house by 10% to achieve an air change rate per hour of 4.53 at a pressure of 50 PaReplace wood burning appliance with a clean-burning model Water Conservation - replace toilets with low/dual flushOriginally, our home had a natural air change rate of 5.03 ac/h @ 50 Pa (air changes per hour). This was determined by the blower door test which also gives an Equivalent Air Leakage Area (ELA). The larger the ELA is, the leaker the house. Ours was 1157.0 square centimeters, which represented a hole of 179.3 square inches in the building envelope, equivalent to having a window of 1.2 square feet open at all times !! When the work was finally completed, we arranged to have our second audit carried out. This confirmed that we had achieved a rating of 73 and put us in the top 5% of this group of houses. (However, since that time, we have also improved the wall insulation by R-12 and made many other modifications and no doubt will continue to do so).

The efficient wood stove we installed wasn't a very expensive one, but that alone is capable of heating the entire bungalow. Because of the level of insulation, only a very small number of logs is required to bring the house up to temperature. Heat loss is slow.

We have not had the oil heating system switched on since installing wood stoves. However, it could be useful if we ever need to go away in the winter time.

We also usually use our cookstove which has been set up to heat hot water as well as cook, heat the home, dry clothes, boil the kettle, etc.

The solar hot water works on any sunny day of the year (outside temperatures immaterial!), wood heat supplements this when there is no sun. We have used absolutely no oil or electricity to heat the water during the winter. It might be possible that we will need to supplement the solar in the summer if there is no sun but if it is too hot for a fire.

We are very grateful that the schemes existed to enable us to make these modifications to our home. It meant that we could retrofit an existing home and easily bring it to a very high energy efficient standard.The winter of 2010/2011 was our first winter in the home. We were snug and warm (sometimes too warm!). We were amazed at how well everything worked. The previous owner said he burned 7 cords of wood and 100 gallons of oil. We burned just 1.5 cords of wood for all our heating, hot water and cooking needs. Needless to say, we were very happy about that!

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